Lansing blamed a slowdown in advertising dollars. At the U.S. Agency for Global Media, Lansing championed a free press even as leaders of many nations move against it. Scripps Company, where he managed the company's portfolio of ten broadcast television stations across the country. LANSING, John, Jr. | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives Lansing also spent almost 20 years working at Scripps, including eight years as President of Scripps Networks. Copyright 2023. The last time NPR faced such stark choices, it was 2008. All of that is to say that coming out of the reckoning of Memorial Day 2020 was for us and for me, in particular, a call to action internally at NPR to hear and reckon with our own issues internally. But here, Lansing basically jumps over those disclaimers using the lame attribution of private citizen.. John Lansing will begin his term as President and CEO of NPR in October, 2019. But it was not from a standing start. NPR And for those stations that were scheduled to have a reduction, we allowed those reductions to go forward with a floor of 3% so that nobodys dues went up. But thats our commitment. This is an edited transcript of the conversation among Lansing, Current Reporter Tyler Falk and Digital Editor Mike Janssen. Not exactly. I subscribe to the notion of leadership as a servant leader, that the role of leaders is to support the team to do their best work. Board Memberships & Affiliations. NPRs search for a new CEO is finally over! And how's that being measured and accounted for? When asked about his priorities, Lansing invoked what he has called the network's "North Star'' since his arrival in the fall of 2019: a push to ensure the network has a bigger and broader audience base, rooted in younger and more diverse listeners, readers and consumers. Mohn will continue on as President Emeritus & Co-Chair of the 50th Anniversary Campaign. After Lansing hopped over to NPR from USAGM in 2019, NPR had to be prompted by outside critics to include disclaimers on its USAGM/VOA stories to note Lansings past USAGM role. Born and raised in Albany, New York, Lansing was trained as a lawyer, and was long involved in politics and government.During the American Revolution he was military secretary to General Philip Schuyler. And as a CEO, and also as a white man, I want to know, how did you handle it when all eyes were on you? I think you have to be transparent and be able to explain what you're doing, even if it's unpopular. Such distinctions between news and programming are tricky, however, as programming oversees podcasts, including those that perform journalistic functions, such as Code Switch, It's Been A Minute, Planet Money, and Throughline. Faces Of NPR showcases the people behind NPR--from the voices you hear every day on the radio to the ones who work outside of the recording studio. During the depths of the Covid-19 pandemic, NPR was at risk of laying off staff when sponsors canceled their spots on the network, said John Lansing, NPR's chief executive. John Lansing, president and CEO Chair of the NPR Foundation John McGinn Public members of the board Carlos Alvarez, CEO, The Gambrinus Company Fred Dust, designer, speaker, and consultant Paul G. Haaga Jr., retired, Capital Research and Management Company - Chairman of the NPR Board of Directors So I brought in Michael Smith as our new chief marketing officer almost a year ago. Will there be another stimulus? NPR Start Date: Mid October, 2020 John Lansing, a media executive with government broadcast and cable television experience, has been named by NPRs board to succeed its current chief, Jarl Mohn who announced the plan to step down after his 5-Year term ended. He served on the Bellarmine University Board of Trustees from 2010-2016 and was vice-chair 2014-2016. During 2021, we worked on that with Keith and with Diversity and Inclusion Manager Whitney Maddox. They lost their objectivity and are now just pushing leftist ideology. From 2015 to 2019, Lansing served as the CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), the independent federal agency whose programming reaches an average weekly audience of 345 million people in 62 languages. Because when you're all at work, you're all at work, and you go home to your individual situations. Lansing's tenure at the agency has not been without controversy. advanced degree - political agility. John Lansing is a former Obama appointee who was named president and CEO of NPR on Thursday. Inquiry Exonerates USAGM Executives Suspended By Trump Appointee - NPR He was promoted to news photographer after two years, then moved on to managing editor, news director, and leadership of commercial television affiliates around the country. Again, I think it's about getting it intertwined into everything we do. Lansing: They were for general. Current: Is there a timeline for that process? He was responsible for strategic and operational oversight and P&L of the $2.5 billion division of Scripps Networks Interactive, including the company's portfolio of six cable networks Food Network, HGTV, Travel Channel, DIY, Cooking Channel and Great American Country and the $100 million Scripps Networks Digital division. John F. Lansing (he/him) oversees one of the country's most iconic news organizations, whose rigorous reporting and unsurpassed storytelling connects with millions of Americans every day on the air, online, and in person. I thought, wow. If you had to create a podcast, what would it be about? Why did you undertake this? So we were pleased to see SAG-AFTRA join our efforts. "The result, I believe, is a war on truth. How are you working to shore up NPRs place in the podcasting landscape and compete with deep-pocketed tech companies? So it's kind of inseparable, that coming in as CEO of NPR, and then six months in having the coronavirus, followed by a major economic downturn in the country and for NPR, and then the reckoning that summer. administration regarding the now former managers of his former place of employment (USAGM) but claims the mantle of private citizen to do so. Current: You recently made some changes to NPRs digital strategy by moving to integrate digital operations into divisions throughout the organization.This also includes eliminating the role of chief digital officer held by Thomas Hjelm at the end of February. No. Current: How else might NPR assist stations in the coming year? Now, he says, it must drum up more creative income sources, like the licensing of the popular show How I Built This to Amazon's streaming services, which he says generates $8 million annually. And our number one goal is to improve our audience diversity. He soon made DEI the top priority at NPR. Weve had a couple of significant anonymous gifts that have helped shore up our forecast for the coming fiscal year. Lansing: Its on social media platforms or YouTube or through media partnerships. In recent remarks online, Johnson, who is Black, focused on a more competitive landscape for NPR journalists, including people of color. During the Donald Trump administration, he held roles in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and was acting Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Community Planning and Development. NPR hosts' departures fuel questions over race. The full story is In an interview on Friday, Mr. Lansing, 62, praised NPR as a home of high-quality journalism and audio production, and said that in addition to supporting traditional radio broadcasting he wanted to help NPR further its expansion into areas like podcasts, where the radio network has already been a leader. I was very pleased to see Code Switch named as Apples top podcast of the year. But mostly its targeted at marketing investments on social media platforms that are specifically reaching out to younger and more diverse audiences to see if we can drive sampling. Under standard procedures for reporting on NPR matters, NPR's corporate and news executives were not allowed to review the report until it was posted. NPR's John Lansing Discusses the Importance of Integrity in Journalism Mohn fired head of news Michael Oreskes on Halloween 2017. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. And the pandemic hit six months later in March of '20. Last summer, we definitely had a racial reckoning. Mike Morgan/Mike Morgan Our goal of developing our audience as a younger and more diverse audience requires that we invest in marketing, we invest in content, and we partner with platforms where those audiences can be found rather than expecting younger and more diverse audiences to come to our platforms, necessarily. Board Member. NPR's chief executive announced the network would lay off roughly 10% of its . Lansing says he remains committed to podcasting "1,000 percent," as well as the network's hallmark news magazines, such as Morning Edition and All Things Considered. I remember we had several all-staff discussions about a variety of issues that branched off of that, including the Code of Conduct, for example, as it relates to NPR employees at public demonstrations. Follow Bloomberg reporters as they uncover some of the biggest financial crimes of the modern era. Were finishing up in the next two to three weeks the specific lists of actions and activities under these pillars. And were happy to see SAG-AFTRA agree with us and to join up. It is our work. In an email to the staff on Friday, John Lansing, who joined the nonprofit as chief executive in September, projected that NPR would fall $12 million to $15 million short of the amount it had . And The New York Times has won praise and new fans through its weekday podcast The Daily, with in-depth interviews of reporters and newsmakers. Last year, however, the U.S. Agency for Global Media came under fire when it emerged that it had bought Facebook ads targeting American citizens, in violation of laws meant to protect Americans from domestic propaganda. I think that's where we all wind up. Pat O'Donnell, the executive director of the union's Mid-Atlantic unit, could not be reached for comment for this story. And its something that I think will strengthen the ability for news programming, marketing and member services to be more responsive and to offer greater service to audiences in a more agile way. How is it a priority? What steps does NPR still need to take in this area? NPR Cuts Executive Pay as Corporate Sponsors' Payments Fall document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Current is an editorially independent, nonprofit service of the American University School of Communication. Lansing: Lets go back in time. This is simply disingenuous. NPR Laying Off 10 Percent of Its Workforce - townhall.com And theyre all expected to articulate a DEI goal thats measurable, actionable, and that they can be held accountable for and will be. We established management commitments to the women of color so that we address specifically their concerns. Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft have announced more than 50,000 job cuts combined in just the past few months. "Management is about committing to strategy, making tough decisions.". So if you have leaders talking about DEI as a priority, well, then, show me. So we took that very, very seriously. I, and the management team, all of us, we determined that was going to be a priority for the year 2021. "When I think of NPR and I think of the member stations collectively, I think really of journalism as a public service, not tied to a profit motive," Lansing told NPR News. hide caption. So that would be mine. Mr. Lansing, who began his career as a teenage cameraman at a television station in Kentucky, spent two decades at Scripps Networks. 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So hes doubling down on lack of diversity, does that mean he wants his audience to reflect the other half of the country, the conservatives in flyover country? I think the work Keith has been doing long before I got here on diversity in tracking sources and the storytelling that we're doing around the company has really been effective in the area of DEI on radio, podcasting, and digital. Were working with them to do joint investigative reporting. Experts say the behavior could have constituted insider trading. CEO John Lansing discusses NPR's diversity efforts, budget - Current NPR Selects Voice of America Boss as Its New Leader Its my expectation that that will expand throughout the organization, so that everybody understands its everybodys job, and the accountability is going to be something that we measure and transparently report back out. NPR has tapped longtime media executive John Lansing to become its next president and CEO. As we moved through the summer, that deficit remained at about $25 million. And the fourth one is to diversify and grow our revenue models so that were not overly reliant on one or two revenue streams to help strengthen our future financials. Courtesy of Allison Shelley for NPR. Current: Did anything else stand out to you in that survey that you believe needed attention and needs attention? To be a part of creating the future of such an important institution is humbling, exciting, and a distinct honor.". And some stations who had a schedule to go down actually were allowed to go down. So sad to me. And I would do a board-level review for the donor or donors as to where the business was, the value of the work we were doing, the things we were adding in terms of covering the pandemic. hide caption. NPR will cut 10% of its workforce, CEO John Lansing said Wednesday. The network's fight for listeners' time has become more feverish. And what a breath of fresh air Whitney brings into the organization. He has previously announced he would be staying on as president emeritus to help the network raise major gifts, and along with his wife, Pamela Mohn, he personally committed $10 million to the network. Lansing has won plaudits from journalists for his rousing defense of a free press even while serving in the Trump administration, which has been notably hostile to traditional notions of the role of journalism in civic life. NPR, the public radio and podcasting giant, has a new leader after years of growth and internal turmoil. He will be the 11th permanent president or chief executive in the radio network's nearly 50-year history. While member stations on average receive about 10% of their funding from the federal government, fees from the stations make up a significant part of the NPR budget. John Lansing Jr. - Wikipedia I got this part time job at a TV station to make a little money while I was going to college. Scripps Company, Held senior management positions at Scripps-owned affiliates, including WEWS TV in Cleveland, Ohio and WXYZ TV in Detroit, Michigan, Early in his career Award-winning Photojournalist and Field Producer, Assignment Manager, Managing Editor, and News Director at several television stations. It really stretched me to understand that flexibility is a good thing. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Public Media Now was created to be a centralized source of information and resources to help professional within Public Media be more successful. It was hard for everyone. NPR Facebook Post with Comments. Mike Morgan/Mike Morgan When you first got to NPR, what did you think? First of all, as a white man, my first reaction is that it's important for white people in general to understand the inherent biases that we have, even when we think we don't, unconsciously. Were working with member stations on topic teams for, say, political reporting or criminal justice reporting across the system. And weve seen some significant success with that. In a memo to. So its a constant commitment to communication, to training, to accountability. If it's not being solved from the top down, it shouldn't be a burden for people just trying to build their career. "And I want to look for areas that I can provide leadership to bring resources together as needed strategically to find the right priorities that make the most sense for growing NPR this year and then into the future.". NPR Announces Layoffs In 'Major Loss' For Network The other is the fight for donors. And so in late 2019 we began working on a set of priorities for the calendar year 2020 that included promoting Keith Woods to chief diversity officer; putting more energy behind our effort to have 100% sourcing and notating the diversity of our sources; and hiring, leadership, unconscious bias training, et cetera. John F Lansing, National Public Radio Inc: Profile and Biography We have many miles to go. This is essentially the DEI work writ large, but also our culture of respect, safety, upward mobility, training and making NPR a world-class organization for which to work. Video Snippet Did you plan for this or did it kind of just happen? "The combination of his health issues plus the situation with Mike Oreskes did derail his plans.". Unlike some predecessors, Lansing doesn't face a particularly fraught political landscape. Podtrac, which measures the audiences of podcast publishers, has consistently placed NPR at the top of its monthly rankings. Lansing: When we look at our strategic plan and our commitment to growing our audience of the future, its clear to us that every corner of NPR has a digital on-demand initiative thats critical to our success and that it makes more sense to have the digital assets closer to the work thats influencing our audiences and growing our audiences. Being selective, having mentors both white and people of color mentors that you can have confidential conversations with and gain some thoughts to help you develop your strategy, standing up for yourself which essentially is what happened at NPR through the climate survey and holding leaders accountable for everything. First, we're a nonprofit. He is passionate about NPR's public service mission and the role of a free and independent media in a strong democracy. Weve seen significant growth in Code Switch, in Louder Than a Riot, in Sam Sanders podcast [Its Been a Minute], in part because for the first time in a while, were really investing in marketing support for those podcasts.